Double Yellow Lines
by Mickleditch
Summary: [No Place Like Home, 1983] Short little one-shot. Raymond decides to assert himself, and Lorraine gains a brand new appreciation of the Highway Code.


Disclaimer: all characters property of Jon Watkins and the BBC.

* * *

Lorraine's waiting for Tracy outside Barclays when she sees Raymond making his way up the pavement, traffic warden's bag hoisted on his shoulder. She watches him write tickets for three cars, a Lambretta, and a kids' bike. He's just opening his book again for a Ford Transit, when the back doors slam, and something closely resembling Giant Haystacks' younger brother steps around the corner of the van, and stands, arms grimly folded.

Raymond freezes momentarily, then tries out an uncertain, cheesy grin. When he's met with about as much warmth as an estate agent's handshake, he starts to back slowly off, whistling casually. The driver keeps his eye fixed on him until he's completely satisfied that he's walked far enough away, then returns to the back of his vehicle. Raymond immediately carries out a swift u-turn, makes his way back to the van, and, tongue between his teeth, rips the ticket from his pad and slides it under the windscreen wiper. Then he draws a smiley face in the dirt on the bonnet with his finger before tiptoeing away again with a second grin that consists less of friendly appeasement and more of gleeful satisfaction.

Lorraine just rolls her eyes, until he comes to another halt, licks his pencil purposefully, and starts writing the next ticket. She leans forward.

"Raymond, what on earth are you doing?!"

"No parking here, Lorraine. Double yellow lines, see? No stopping except to pick up and drop off."

"Can't you make an exception in certain circumstances?"

"Sorry, Freckle, that'd be more than my job's worth. If I start letting people off the hook, I lose my bonuses. And I don't get paid very much, so I need all the bonuses I can get."

Completely exasperated now, Lorraine reaches for the handle and furiously winds the window down the rest of the way. "But Raymond - this is _our car!"_

"I can't help that, can I? I'm trying to earn an honest living so I can support us!"

"It isn't very supportive to our finances to have to pay parking fines!"

"Dad'll pay it."

"No he won't!"

"He paid Nigel's and Paul's."

"You gave Nigel and Paul tickets too?!"

"Well, Nigel was double parked, and Paul was blocking access to the public highway from our drive with a secondary vehicle."

Lorraine shakes her head. "What secondary vehicle?"

"Timothy's pram. Listen, I can't give anybody special treatment just because they're family! Even if they _are_ the only family I've ever had in my entire life apart from my mother, and even if I do think of them as my family when they don't care about me very much, and... I'm turning over a new leaf, Lorraine! I'm going to make something of myself!"

People walking past are glancing at them. Two increasingly warm spots start to flare in Lorraine's face. "Raymond, I know what you're making of yourself. Get in the car."

"'Rain -"

She reaches over and pushes the other door open. "Just get in the car!"

The springs squeak violently as Raymond deposits himself in the passenger seat and slams the door behind him. He bounces and heaves for a minute more in an attempt to free his uniform coat from where it's hooked on the handbrake, and Lorraine sighs. Raymond's face makes a reasonable threat of taking on his kicked-puppy expression. He's very good at that. It comes from years of practice.

"Am I embarrassing you, is that it?"

"Yes," Lorraine says, then cringes, inwardly. "No. I mean -"

"Yeah. Well. You always were too good for me, weren't you?"

"Don't be silly! I've never said that. I've never even _thought_ it." She tries again. "I know you really have been doing your best lately. It's just that -"

"My best is a traffic warden."

"I told everyone I was proud of you, Raymond, and I am."

"But not as proud as you'd have been if I'd turned out like that merchant banker you were going out with when you met me."

"He was a financial advisor!"

"That as well."

"Raymond!"

"I'm trying to bring home a wage so I can provide for you! Every day I'm out here, pounding the streets, in the cold, abused and despised by everyone, and what do I get for it? _Get in the car, Raymond! Don't be so silly, Raymond! Raymond, come and help me shave my legs!_ You know, you don't even treat me like a man."

Lorraine starts to turn in her seat. "You're being ridiculous, and I'm going to see what's taking Tracy so long."

When he takes hold of her arm, she looks down at it, then back up at him in surprise.

"I'm going to prove myself to you, Lorraine. I'm going to make a success of things. And I'm going to prove myself to you when we get home, as well. Yeah, when we close the door, there's only going to be one man wearing the trousers under my roof!"

"Apart from Dad, Paul and Nigel, you mean?"

Raymond's trying to circumnavigate the gearstick. "'Rain - shut up, will you?"

Lorraine opens her mouth indignantly, with the full intention of telling him not to dare tell her to shut up. But then, before she can, he's kissing her. And she does shut up. For quite a while, actually. Dimly, she can hear some scattered applause from outside the car, and a shout or two of, "Go on, my son!" but she's too preoccupied with his lips on hers, the one hand of his in her hair, and the other one groping its way under her cardigan and around her waist to press into the small of her back and bring her flush against his polished buttons, for it to occur to her to be embarrassed about it.

"Raymond!" she says again, when he finally stops, but in a different sort of way. Her own fingers have found their way upwards at some point and have his collar in a death grip. Raymond for his part has an unabashed grin plastered over his face.

"Think I could get to like this job after all. Bit of power goes right to my head."

Lorraine suddenly finds herself noticing how dark the black of his uniform makes his eyes look, set off by sooty lashes, and even though she's never thought of herself as having any specific kinks, not like Tracy has about firemen, anyway...

She bites her lip. "Raymond -"

"What?"

Relinquishing her hold on his collar, she reaches up to briefly touch the peaked cap with its lurid yellow band. "Would you keep this on? I mean - at home. _Later_."

"If you share a bed with a traffic warden, you're going to have to obey the parking regulations, 'Rainey, you know that."

"What are those?"

"Absolutely no waiting and a maximum of twenty minutes to unload. Yeah!"

When Tracy finally comes out of the bank, she finds Lorraine trying to tidy her hair in the rear-view mirror, with something like a dreamy expression on her face. She throws her sister a quizzical look as she slides into the car, shoving her bag down beside the seat. "Hey, sorry I'm late. Did you have to go round again or something? You look all hot and bothered."

Lorraine feels her cheeks start to pink for the second time. Hurriedly, she readjusts the mirror and busies herself with fastening her seatbelt. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a policeman further down the road angrily rip a parking ticket from the windscreen of his panda car.

"I had a run-in with a traffic warden."


End file.
